Aesthetic Anxiety: Uncanny Symptoms in German Literature and Culture (Internationale Forschungen Zur Allgemeinen Und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft, 141)

__Aesthetic Anxiety__ analyzes uncanny repetition in psychology, literature, philosophy, and film, and produces a new narrative about the centrality of aesthetics in modern subjectivity. The often horrible, but sometimes also enjoyable, experience of anxiety can be an aesthetic mode as well as a psychological state. Johnson's elucidation of that state in texts by authors from Kant to Rilke demonstrates how estrangement can produce attachment, and repositions Romanticism as an engine of modernity. "Aesthetic Anxiety analyzes uncanny repetition in psychology, literature, philosophy, and film, and produces a new narrative about the centrality of aesthetics in modern subjectivity. The often horrible, but sometimes also enjoyable, experience of anxiety can be an aesthetic mode as well as a psychological state. Johnson's elucidation of that state in texts by authors from Kant to Rilke demonstrates how estrangement can produce attachment, and repositions Romanticism as an engine of modernity."--Publisher's website Annotation. "Aesthetic Anxiety "analyzes uncanny repetition in psychology, literature, philosophy, and film, and produces a new narrative about the centrality of aesthetics in modern subjectivity. The often horrible, but sometimes also enjoyable, experience of anxiety can be an aesthetic mode as well as a psychological state. Johnson's elucidation of that state in texts by authors from Kant to Rilke demonstrates how estrangement can produce attachment, and repositions Romanticism as an engine of modernity PrefaceAesthetic Anxiety and the UncannyThe Uncanny Before Freud: Psychological and Philosophical AspectsBeautiful Breakdowns: Uncanny Symptoms and the Aestheticization of IllnessConspiracy Theories: The Melancholy and Manipulated Male SubjectToo Much Memory: Uncanny LoveConclusion: Childish Anxiety, Wish, BeliefBibliography